The Farming Of Bones Sparknotes

The Divide Among Individuals

Personal identity is more than personal preferences, it is the representation of one's history. Edwidge Danitcat uses her novel, The Farming of Bones, to follow the life of a young Haitian woman who lives amid the Parsley Massacre, and faces struggles due to the traits that constitute her personality, while she strives to obtain an improved future. Danticat, through the characterization of Amabelle and the motif of language, illustrates how various components of self-identification cause a needless divide in society and within oneself.

Divide due to social classes is prominent throughout the novel, seen in the characterization of Amabelle. The bond between Amabelle and Senora Valencia from the years they spent together

The use of the word perejil within the novel connects the story to the Parsley Massacre. Dominicans killed people they believed to be Haitian based on how they said perejil, the Spanish word for parsley. People who were Dominican trilled the ‘r’ in perejil, while Haitians would pronounce a flat ‘r’ sound. Within the novel, amidst Amabelle's journey toward freedom, men stop Amabelle and her fellow traveler to “...[shove them] onto [their] knees. [Their] jaws were pried open and parsley stuffed into [their] mouths'”(193). An increase in tension between these nations gave leeway for people to commit heinous acts of violence toward groups they found unfavorable or adverse to their lifestyle. The symbolic representation of the divide between nations suffocates individuals who are opposed to the Dominican way of life and survival is solely based on how perejil is pronounced in one's culture. While murder is the worst crime a person can commit, it is overlooked due to the argument that one group is superior to another. People believe that prominent individuals who are involved in their culture and lifestyle have a reason for their actions. People do not want to believe that they could be incorrect about an idea, so instead, they force themselves to believe the way they live is superior. When Amabelle is suffocated by the hate of the inherent traits of her identity, it emphasizes

Throughout the entirety of the novel, Amabelle has constant dreams that almost always revolve around the death of her parents and occur when she is in the midst of a difficult point in life. Soon after the death of her friend, Amabelle reaches a state of emotional vulnerability to the point that she has a dream about a conversation with her mother where Amabelle says that she “...will never be a whole woman…for the absence of [her mothers] face”(208), which references the war Amabelle fights within the depths of her consciousness. People linger on the past to question their life choices and show their uncertainty, which causes the prevention of evolution within oneself and the build-up of emotional pain. Focus on past decisions causes people to hinder themselves from experiencing the present and working toward the future. Amabelle relives her past sorrow, with the constant curiosity of what life could have been like, rather than accepting the reality of her situation. She enables her past to decide her present personality when she should evolve from her trauma. The grief over the loss of loved ones is necessary to evolve as a person, but years of holding onto the past is harmful and excessive. The divide within a person's consciousness is represented in the novel with the symbolic use of dreams that Amabelle